This invention relates to a method of preparing 2-hydroxy-3-alkyl-2-cyclopenten-1-one which itself is useful as perfume, particularly as food perfume and also can be used as the raw material of other perfumes and chemicals.
As the result of the recent development of the food industry, increasing demand is made for this compound. Further, the way is being paved to prepare other perfumes and chemicals using the above-mentioned compound as a starting material.
The known processes of synthesizing said compound include (A) the process of using esters of propionic acid and esters of oxalic acid as the raw material (refer to "Nippon Nogei Kogaku Kaishi", Vol. 44, p.46, 1970) and (B) the process of using esters of adipic acid as the raw material (refer to the Japanese patent application Publication No. 14,989/66, No. 17,180/68, No. 6817/69, No. 10,493/70 and West German patent application Disclosure No. 2,005,160). However, close study has shown that the above-mentioned processes are still accompanied with drawbacks in that the processes have a low yield, and involve long and complicated reaction steps. Therefore, strong demand has been made for the development of technology capable of resolving these difficulties.